Moving Pictures
by afewreelthoughts
Summary: Jimmy and Rose go to the movies. Set between episodes 4x07 and 4x08.


The day after Thomas left for America, Jimmy Kent went to the movies. It was the same film he'd seen with Ivy, Valentino's _The Sheik_. He hadn't officially gotten the time off, but he knew that with Thomas and Robert gone, he'd desperately be needed downstairs. So he chose not to be present.

He had loved the film when he went with Ivy, but this time he fidgeted and found it hard to focus. He loved moving pictures because they spun a web of fantasy, but now that he was here on his own – no Ivy, no Alfred, no drunken companions from the village – he had no link with reality and might – one of these days – fall into the fantasy on screen and never come out again. It wasn't a bad thought, but it would be lonely, lonelier than he was now; and the most annoying thing of all was that, for the first time since he could remember, he hated being alone. The film had been better with Ivy, giggling and gasping in tandem with him, and he could reassure himself that this fantasy was made for silly girls like her, and he had nothing to fear from it.

He wanted to leave partway through, but he'd already paid good money for this film, and he didn't want to return home to Carson's wrath sooner than was necessary. So he fidgeted and pouted until someone in the front row caught his eye.

He recognized her by her large floppy hat and her fluttering movements. She also seemed to be here alone, but that did not bother her and she laughed and gasped along with those on either side of her as though they were close friends from long ago with whom she wanted nothing more than to see this wonderful picture.

Jimmy relaxed after that - not that his recreational activities needed the upstairs seal of approval - but sitting in the same theater as Rose reminded him of reality enough to enjoy the fantasy in front of him.

He wondered if Mr. Barrow would see any films while in America, and he wondered if theaters were different there. He'd ask when His Lordship returned. He wasn't lonely enough to write a letter; the man had been gone only a day.

When the film ended, he started walking home, and the more he realized Mr. Carson would have missed him and would be angry with him, the slower he walked.

"James?" He turned around to see Lady Rose run down the lane to catch up with him. She had a giant grin on her face. "You headed back to Downton? Would you walk with me?"

"Of course." He found Lady Rose's ease with everyone – upstairs, downstairs, in the village – a bit disconcerting, but he said nothing of it.

"What brings you to town this afternoon, James?"

"Seeing a picture. Am I right in saying you were there as well?"

"Oh, I didn't see you. Sorry." He thought it odd she'd apologize. "It was a wonderful picture, I think! Don't you?"

"I saw it before, milady."

"Moving pictures are an amazing world of fantasy, aren't they? When you're sitting in that theater, you could be anywhere with anyone doing anything. Don't think I'll ever get tired of the feeling."

"Nothing quite like it," he agreed.

"I used to think Downton was a fantasy, too, " her voice grew quiet and somber, and she looked down at her gloves.

He knew told himself it was an impertinent question to ask, but in reality he cared little for propriety and instead feared her answer. They walked a while in silence before his curiosity got the better of him. "What made you change your mind… about Downton not being a fantasyland?"

"You think it isn't?"

"I don't know, milady."

"I think Downton…" she looked up at house and wrinkled her small nose before continuing. "It's a lovely place, a fairytale palace without the cares of London and awful memories of my family. The estate where I grew up could never be fantastic to me, so I was so happy to come to Downton. But now I think…" The estate loomed before them now, cutting a sharp line into the blue, blue sky. "But now every day here reminds me too much about all that is wrong with reality."

"What's wrong with reality?"

She stared at him incredulously, and he wanted to sneer and her and shrug, but he knew that was too impertinent, and he might suffer even more than he was destined to today if Rose mentioned the fact to anyone else downstairs. He thought she'd explain herself, but instead she stopped and turned to him, seriousness through and through.

"Can you keep a secret?"

"A secret… of yours, milady?"

"Yes."

"Well…" _it depends, _he thought, _it honestly depends on what this secret is;_ but all he said was, "Of course."

"It's about something I want desperately… but I know it will mean trouble."

"How's that?"

"What we want isn't always what others want for us."

He snorted. "All too true."

"Isn't there something you want terribly, so much so that everything else seems entirely unimportant? Because that's what my secret is about, and if you feel as I do about someone – or something – then I know you can keep it. Isn't there something you want more than anything else in the whole world?"

He knew that he was supposed to say "love" - everyone was supposed to answer such questions with the word "love," but he'd tried that and watched it fail miserably. He knew he wanted champagne and beautiful women, as he had told Ivy, parties and nice clothes, but he wanted those things in a distant, easy way, the way one wants trinkets under the tree at Christmastime. He did not need them.

Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes loved this house more than anything, and, if gossip was to be believed, each other; Alfred had wanted his job at the Ritz more than anything; Mr. and Mrs. Bates had each other; Mr. Barrow had his ambitions and… Though he knew it was wrong to think it, because the man had lived a difficult life because of his passions, Jimmy envied Barrow. The way that Thomas looked at him when Alfred had walked in on the two of them was the gaze of a man in love, whose life had some meaning beyond himself.

He envied Ivy and Thomas their love of him. He wanted to possess their good opinion of himself, wanted to see Jimmy Kent through their adoring eyes. But he no longer could. He had disappointed both of them terribly, and so he no longer had their adoration with which to believe in himself. At times, though, he thought he saw some of that same worship in Thomas's eyes, and the thought that he was loved made him feel giddy inside – though the rest of him was thoroughly disgusted at the thought.

He grew aware that Lady Rose was still looking at him and patiently waiting for an answer. Though wearing one of her many fun and girlish dresses, he noticed she had the deep and steady eyes of a woman.

_I don't want anything like you do, but I want to want something that badly, _he was ready to say, when Lady Rose took his hand and pulled him off of the road and into the foliage. "Milady, what is -"

"Look." She pointed to the road.

Walking with a bounce in her step, lost in her own world, was Mrs. Patmore. She betrayed no indication of having seen the two of them, or caring if she had. She was smiling and humming to herself, and the sight of it made Jimmy and Rose break out laughing.

"Shh! She getting closer," Rose said. "What do you think put her in such a mood?" she whispered.

"The picture show, I think. She's quite the fan of Rudolph Valentino."

"She is not!" Rose whispered. "To think of Beryl Patmore swooning over Rudy Valentino…"

In all his time at Downton, this was the first Jimmy had heard of Mrs. Patmore's Christian name. "Don't tell her I told you, or she'll have my hide."

"Twice over, I think. But don't worry," she smiled, "her secret's safe with me."

Jimmy wanted to ask again what Lady Rose's secret was, but after Mrs. Patmore had passed them by and they continued walking together, the moment had passed. Jimmy didn't go to see another moving picture until His Lordship and Mr. Barrow returned. And we all know what happened then.


End file.
